What Does Genesis 20:5 Mean?
Did he not say to me, She is my sister? And she, even she herself, said, He is my brother. With an unbroken heart and clean hands I have done this.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.THE KEY
In Hebrew, integrity is wholeness, so the heart and hands give one joined account.
THE MEANING
Abimelech places his heart’s wholeness and his hands’ cleanness in the same account. The next verse says God recognizes the integrity of his heart and has also restrained his hand from touching Sarah. The verse speaks now whenever a choice is accounted for: inward intent and outward action both belong in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that sincere intention alone makes every action harmless: the next verse affirms Abimelech’s heart while showing God restraining his hand.
THE ROOT
תֹּם
tom
GROWS FROM
תמם
t-m-m
To be complete or whole.
“unbroken heart” in this verse is tom. The Hebrew word for “integrity” carries the sense of wholeness. Abimelech names the heart’s wholeness alongside the hands’ cleanness, putting inward intent and outward action into one account.
ALSO GROWS
tamam: To be complete or brought to completion.
תָּמַם
The verb preserves the sense of integrity as wholeness.
tamim: Whole, complete, or blameless.
תָּמִים
This related form carries the same idea of completeness into descriptions of a person or offering.
נִקָּיוֹן
niqqayon
GROWS FROM
נקה
n-q-h
To be clean, clear, or free of guilt.
“clean hands” in this verse is niqqayon. “Innocency” here is expressed as cleanness, with Abimelech naming the palms of his hands. That image makes the claim concrete: his account concerns what his hands have done or been kept from doing.
ALSO GROWS
naqi: Clean, innocent, or free from guilt.
נָקִי
This adjective shows the same root describing someone as clear of wrongdoing.
niqqah: To clear, acquit, or leave clean.
נִקָּה
This verb form shows cleanness as the state of being cleared or left free of guilt.
THE PATTERN
Integrity is a whole account in which inward intent and outward action remain joined.
Clean of hands and clear of heart, he who does not lift up his living soul to emptiness, nor swears in deceit.The aligned one walks in his wholeness; flourishing are his children after him.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
A Psalm of David. Judge me, O LORD, for I walk in my wholeness, and I lean my full weight upon the LORD; so I do not slip.The word “integrity” in both verses comes from תֹּם (tom, wholeness or completeness), and Psalm 26:1 pictures that wholeness as a way a person walks. The shared root opens Abimelech’s heart and hands as one lived account.
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